How E-commerce can reduce cycle time, improve employees’ empowerment, and facilitate customer support?

Whatever it is your business sells, you need to deliver it better, faster and cheaper in order to satisfy customer need. Therefore, cycle-time reduction is a vital tool in doing so. In these days, e-commerce goes hand-in-hand with cycle-time reduction.

E-commerce can reduce the amount of time in processing the transaction. For example, e-banking help user to bank in their money faster without the need to go to the bank, company can make purchases order from their supplier through the website. By doing so, it can also help to reduce the paper work. Online booking air ticket service has make it convenient for people to buy air ticket at any time, so that people can save time without the need to go to the travel agency to buy the air ticket. This reduces the cycle time of processing the transaction because the company can process the customer’s information immediately compared to time wasted for waiting customer to fill in the form if they are physically present in the air ticket company.


To keep customers happy, company must able to respond customer questions quickly and accurately. E-commerce help to provide such assistance through a static website FAQ (frequently asked questions) which provide a medium for customer to ask a question regarding the product or services of the company. Once the questions are entered by the customer into the system, the system will quickly respond the customer.Thus, e-commerce can also help to facilitate customer support.


In addition, e-commerce can help to improve the employees’ empowerment .In order to respond to customer inquiry or demand quickly, it is important for the company to allow the employees to make the decision. For example, decision to provide purchases discount, extension of credit term, negotiate purchases price with the customer, or making appointment. If the employee can make such decision without the need to get approval from few levels of management, it can help to fasten the e-commerce transaction processing time.

In conclusion, e-commerce has been very useful in reducing cycle time, facilitate customer support and in improving employee empowerment. Organization should introduce e-commerce into their business to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of their transaction and daily activities.